Two, of Nine
by Sakon76
Summary: 2011 series. Expansion of "Trials of Lion-O, Part II."


**Two, of Nine**  
by K. Stonham  
first released 9th November 2012

His eyes flew open. All he could see was darkness.

No... after a moment to adjust, he could see a faint glimmer of light above him. The moons shone dimly through cold dark water.

And he was still pinned.

The breathlessness of being put back into his body suddenly flared into fury. What good was coming back if he was still trapped by these rocks? Incensed, Lion-O renewed the futile struggles of his death.

Rosy light slowly bled from between the rocks as he thrashed. It grew brighter, lighter, until he could see-

Could see the rocks lifting off him, and the Spirit Stone shining bright from the back of the Claw Shield.

Well. That was one way to solve the problem.

Shoving free, Lion-O kicked to the surface. An eddy of the river pushed him to the shore. Clawing his way onto the bank, he knelt there for a moment, dripping and chilled and... and not breathing.

That could be a problem, he realized, just before a violent purge overtook him. Water churned painfully out of his mouth. He devolved into a coughing, hacking wreck, clearing water out of his mouth and nose and lungs. He ached like fire before it was through, and wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and whimper like a kitten.

He pushed to his feet instead. _I must have been down there for hours,_ Lion-O thought. _If I don't end up with pneumonia from this, I'll be lucky... heh. Not like I'll be here long enough for that to be a problem._ In the moonlight, the cliff face stretched high above him. He hadn't been swept far downstream; he could clearly see the broken candyfruit trees where they'd been ambushed. No sign of the Lizards, or of the ThunderCats. But it was a starting point.

_It took us hours to get up there. I don't have that much time!_

A cawing turned his head. A giant Ave dove down on the river, failed to catch a fish, and rose back up along the cliff in one graceful swoop.

His mind flashed back to his trial with Cheetara.

Lion-O was put in mind of a saying he'd heard a conman say in the slums of Thundera. "More than one way to skin a Cat..." he murmured, and prepared to pounce.

* * *

One night, to rescue his brother, his friends, his people. _This is going to be tight,_ Lion-O thought as he released the Ave's leg and landed crouching on the ridge.

Blaster marks, a few scuffed tracks (Cat paw prints, and Lizard feet blurred by the marks of their tails) in the dirt... none of it gave him a hint where they'd gone.

He paused at a spiky-haired face drawn onto a flat of the rock wall. It was, he realized, a sort of picture of him. It definitely wasn't Tygra's artwork, and he couldn't imagine it being Cheetara or Panthro's handiwork either. Which left the kittens. He knelt and touched a claw to it. Probably Kit, Lion-O decided. She was more fanciful than her brother.

Closing his eyes, he drew a long draught of air through his nose, sorting out smells. Cold river water. That was himself. The dry scaliness of Lizards, the metal tang of their transports and faint _chemical_ smell of their weapons. The blood-smell that marked the Monkian and Jackalman. Tygra's sharp musk, faded now, and Cheetara's floral scent. Panthro's... unique odor, the kittens' thin milkiness, and Snarf, who smelled like home.

Opening his eyes, Lion-O smiled at the drawing. _Got you,_ he thought, and ran off into the night.

* * *

Time seemed to stretch and dilate, warping in some odd way as he chased the scent, now and then coming across one of WilyKit's drawings, letting him know that he was on the right path. He stopped briefly, confused, in a rocky dell. There were fight-marks all over the ground, and the scents suddenly separated. The Cats-smell were fresher, stronger, but the Lizards and all their technology had gone ahead. What had happened?

_The Sword of Omens,_ Lion-O realized, and started running again. _They got free, but the Lizards have the Sword and are taking it to Mumm-Ra. No way would they let him keep it._

His feet pounded the ground and wind whistled past his ears, but at least his body felt warm again, alive. Heated by his run.

_It's going to kill Tygra to see me die twice,_ Lion-O knew.

_Sorry, brother..._

* * *

Of course.

Of COURSE they were in Mumm-Ra's pyramid.

"Whiskers," Lion-O swore, then kept his other imprecations to himself as he snuck past the guards. Nice of his people to leave a big gaping hole open in the thing so he could follow where they'd gone. Not that they were exactly _expecting_ him-

As soon as he was inside the structure, he stopped, overcome by a wave of vertigo.

_I've been here before._ He knew this building, knew its layout. _No,_ Lion-O realized. _**I** haven't. **Leo** has._ And apparently he retained enough of Leo's memories to know where...

_Assume the worst: they've been captured. The cell blocks are this way..._

A grim smile on his face, Lion-O crept through the darkness.

* * *

Okay, maybe he'd taken a little bit too much pleasure in locking the Lizard, Monkian, and Jackalman in a cell. But it had been _really nice_ for a change to feel like a proper Cat dealing with some mice.

_I'm in the middle of a spirit-tale,_ Lion-O thought, sneaking up to the cell that held his brother, his friends, his people. _I wish it was always this easy._

* * *

Mumm-Ra was a coward who ran when he couldn't win a fight. Lion-O might be a bit queer for a Cat, but he was enough of a ThunderCat to _despise_ cowardice.

But Mumm-Ra wasn't his concern tonight. His people were. So he went after them instead, guarding their flight from the dark pyramid.

They were nearly to the edge of the desert, free of pursuit, when they all called for a break. Lion-O wasn't tired, but given the amount of ground he'd crossed that night, he really should have been. He suspected the spirits had _done_ something when they'd put him back in his body. But that was neither here nor there, as the dawn was coming. He could feel it in his bones, hear it in the noises of the desert life, see it in the gold-pinks warming the eastern sky.

_Hope Tygra will be a good king._

It was time for Lion-O to pay his price.

His people were worth it.

* * *

**Author's Note**: When I watched both parts of "Trials of Lion-O," I thought it was some of the best storytelling the show has had to date. Except that, due to format and show length, some of the more realistic stuff didn't show up. Like the consequences of Lion-O's body lying at the bottom of the river for several hours, and how much distance he would have had to cross on foot to get to the pyramid... (Incidentally, the show's geography hurts my head.) So The Muse slapped me upside the head and wanted to fill in a few gaps. The title refers to the fact that cats allegedly have nine lives; Lion-O is now on number two... Hope you enjoyed the story!


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